Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you all a very blessed Christmas!

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Busy Week

Busy this week so I guess I’ll do a Yarn Along/Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real combo post.

I whipped up some snowflakes for Ella’s 2 skating coaches.  They haven’t been starched in this picture yet.  I love making snowflakes.

Decided to make another Christmas present after all.  I’ve seen this style of sock in a lot of the old pattern books I collect.  They are usually called bed socks.  Very fast, no heels like a tube sock.  I think it’s cool the way the pattern makes it look twisted.

Tuesday we gave up waiting for snow and headed out to the tree farm for our Christmas tree.  Cedar Hill is one of the few places that have their own fir trees.  Most tree places bring in firs.  It was a bit drizzly and windy.  Actually at times the wind was blowing the rain sideways and made it almost look like snow.

This is NOT what it should look like waiting for the tractor.

Got to have our annual picture.  I’m not getting taller, same can’t be said for Ella!

Look who needed measured too?

Waiting for our hot dogs and chili while sipping on our hot cocoa.

My Pretty girl -just because.

Stopped in Pakenham to check out their cool general store.  It’s been in operation since the 1840’s.  It’s very cool inside.  Not much has changed (except the products).  Upstairs is all sorts of decorative things.

Boy cranking your machine by hand would be a hard way to work.  Especially since I like to use two hands to guide the material.

Deliberately picked a little smaller and less full tree this year.  Tim’s still very much a kitten and we didn’t know how he would behave.  Ella decorated the tree this year.  We kept the bottom fairly bare so we wouldn’t tease Tim too much.

What does Tim think of it all?  Well most of the time he thinks it’s a great place for a cat nap.  Figaro loved to sleep at the back side of the Christmas tree too.

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Happy New Year 2015!!

On the 8th day of Christmas….

I finally get a chance to do a Christmas post!  We’ve had such a busy Christmas-tide this year.  Luckily the New Year is looking much quieter.

I haven’t many pictures from Christmas day, our camera is acting up and Ella was super excited (i.e., not sitting still) so most are too blurry to share.  I think Ella’s favourite gift was from Santa.

The one thing she asked for from Santa was a reindeer from Build-a-Bear.  She wanted Comet and Santa delivered!  Comet came with a cute outfit and wearing reindeer slippers.  So very cute.

She was also rather happy with the new tiara and feather boa from Momma and Daddy.  Though we’re going to have to make sure the boa is always put away when not being worn.  Zim finds it too interesting to ignore.

MY favourite gift from my Mommy.  New boots (by Baffin).  Now my feet will be warm and dry.  The lacing on the side is the only way these skater legs can wear tall boots.

I had a hard time coming up with a Christmas list this year.  Anything I really wanted/needed weren’t really things other people could get me.  I had been looking at a new winter coat.  I’ve had my current one since Ella was born and I was starting to feel a little dumpy in it and missing having a pretty coat.  But since the ones I was looking at were either vintage or designer, I wasn’t likely going to get one:

I really love the sleeves of this one.  And the embroidery of course.

And a beautiful vintage one.  I love to wear colour in the winter.  Everyone is always so black and grey.  I used to have a beautiful forest green one with a Celtic braid around the bottom.  But I was much smaller then.

So what does my darling husband do?

He got Grandma to pick up this beautiful material (this picture is the closest I could get to accurate)!  I’ve been eyeing it at Fabricland for a while.  It’s Melton and was $22/m !!  I guess the day Grandma was there was one of the 50% off days.  She was able to buy not only the red, but some black crepe for a lining and some flannel for the interlining.  Our Fabricland stinks so they didn’t have any flannel backed satin that would have been a better lining choice.  Oh well, interlining isn’t hard.

This is the pattern I’m using.  It’s Vogue 9040, for some reason the Vogue website isn’t working so I can’t give you the actual link.  I may change the sleeves to be like the grey one.  Grandma also picked out some beautiful metal buttons with snowflakes in the centre -love them!

Belinda and Stefan were up on Boxing day and spoiled us rotten, as usual.  Belinda really liked her cardigan and Uncle Stefan loved the Minecraft inspired t-shirt Ella made for him.

After cooking a giant turkey for Christmas day with Colin’s step family I made a beef roast for Boxing day.  And of course, it wouldn’t be a Rees family Christmas without Christmas crackers!

The 27th saw us across the road at Grandpa and Grandma Lorraine’s house with Colin’s sister and her family.  It was just a short afternoon visit but the kids had a good time together.

Auntie Elizabeth and her family gave Ella some great binoculars.  She loves them.  They came with a book of outdoor adventures.  Ella loves to play spy so will love them for that too.

Ella also really liked this nice cozy tunic sweater from Grandma and Grandpa Fletcher.

Then we piled in the truck and headed south!

First stop was my girlfriends for a great afternoon of visiting and remembering.  Charlynne and I have been friends since we were 6.  We were friends in school and at church.  There wasn’t much we didn’t do without the other (including Guiding and skating).

If you are ever in Bowmanville at Christmas time you must drive up 57 and check out the homes on Old Scuggog Rd.

The show is just amazing.  And the homes are beautiful too.

I’ve always loved this log one.  The one beside it is even better (picture didn’t turn out).  It’s board and batten and looks colonial -my favourite.

I thought we had some pictures of Great-grandma on the camera, but we didn’t.  We did have a good visit with Great-grandma and Uncle Dennis.  Though it’s sad to see how ‘old’ my Grandma is getting.

As usual we stayed with our friends Petra and Martin at Our Valley View.  Enniskillen is a little community just north of Bowmanville and it’s the perfect place.  As you can see, Comet came on the holiday too.  She got to meet Moosey, Ella’s friend who’s always waiting for us in the Canadiana room.

On the way home we stopped at my dad and step-mom’s.  Again, we somehow missed pictures.  It was good to visit with them.  My dad’s having problems with his eyes (cataracts and glaucoma) so it’s unlikely they will be up any time soon.  They got Ella the bedding for her American Girl doll so now she’s all set to go camping.

All in all, it was a fabulous holiday.  Lots of love and visiting.

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O Christmas Tree -2014

Friday we headed out for Pakenham to pick out the perfect Christmas tree.  We love going to the Cedar Hill Christmas tree farm.  It’s the best place around.  Daddy always takes this picture to see if ‘Momma has grown’.  As we can see, I’m still the same.

We got a bit of snow on Wednesday (and Pakenham got a bit more than we did).  So conditions were beautiful.  Though the trees were really loaded with snow.

Patiently waiting for Daddy to cut down the tree.  The temperature was great, just a bit of a breeze.

Hauling the tree up to the pick-up spot.

Ella and her souvenir snowball.  I convinced her to leave it at the farm.

The farm was settled in the 1820’s.  This is the original farmhouse.  I love all the windows.

Sledding was a bit slow with the deep snow.

But after a few Daddy passes, they were flying.

Lunch -hot dogs (chili for Momma) and hot cocoa.  Perfect after all the snow fun.

Then back outside for a bit more fun.

This is Ella ‘stuck’ in the drainage pipe.

While watching the fun, I caught an almost perfect snowflake on my mitten:

Ready to head home…

All tuckered out.

Saturday after the tree had rested and melted.  Daddy put on the lights and garland and then Ella did everything else.  I think I literally put on 2-3 decorations.  She does such a nice job.

Oh yeah,

Merry has already been caught fooling around in the tree!

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Gaudete Sunday -Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real Edition

I know I posted this earlier in the week.  I really wanted to share it for Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real but couldn’t wait to share.  So I’m going to link it up for PHFR too  🙂

This past Sunday was Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday of Joy, the third Sunday of Advent.  The hangings at church were pink as was the Advent wreath candle.  We were able to go to Ottawa for church again.  It was a very special day for Ella.

My beautiful girl received her First Communion.

Father even had a fancy little pin to give her to remember the day (and a certificate to come later).

Not only that, but she was in her first Christmas pageant too.  When we turned up for Sunday School everyone was getting in their costumes.  I told Ella she would have to come sit in church with Grandma and me and our friends.  Kate, the great Sunday School teacher, said it was no problem.  She found Ella an angel costume (fit her like it was made for her) and Ella got to be part of the heavenly host.  Ella was rather nervous but did a great job.

I didn’t get a picture of the sheep.  They were so adorable.  They were only 2ish years old.

After church we went home with our friends to celebrate an early Christmas/Yule.  And guess what they gave me??

A pure-bred Siamese cat!  She’s about 1 1/2 years old and so well-mannered (so far).  Her people were moving so they were giving her away.  She looks so much like the Siamese I had when I finished university (and we just lost a couple of years ago).  Her name is Zim -apparently some anime character.  Rather dumb name if you ask me. But she answers to it, so I guess it will have to stay.  She has really taken to Ella.  This is what we found when we went to bed and checked in on Ella:

 

Guess the ‘no cat in bed’ rule didn’t last long.  Zim sure is cute though.

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Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real -11 December 2014

 

A very Happy girl this week.  Ella is really loving her figure skating lessons.

That long-legged blur in the middle is my girl.  It’s so hard to get a picture when she’s skating.

My Pretty girl was so very Happy after class on Monday.  She earned another ribbon and that meant that she also received her first badge!  I’m so proud of my girl and of course, she’s so proud of herself too.

The house is starting to look Pretty too.  We’ve gotten out a few more of our Advent/Christmas decorations.

Things are very crowded at the stable this year.  I’ve just noticed that even the giraffes have come to visit our Lord.

Not Christmas without my German pyramids (didn’t get a picture of my other one).  I love the countdown candle I got in last year’s swap.  I still don’t think I’ll light it, it’s too pretty.

We got a bit of snow last night, just a couple of inches.  But Ella’s been outside for about an hour already.  We’re going for the tree soon, so I was hoping it would snow.  At least it’s not like the Christmas I was pregnant with Ella.  The snow as thigh deep (on me) and I was big I had to stay home.  You should have seen the tree Colin came home with!  It barely fit in the living room, it was so big around.

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Farm Girl Friday -29 November 2013

 

The Farm Girly and I were busy earlier this week.  I missed Stir-Up Sunday because the Farmer and I escaped away for the weekend.  So we did our baking on Tuesday.  Ella is such a great help this year.

Ella did ALL the chopping for the fruitcake and the Christmas pudding.  She also did most of the mixing for the fruitcake.  The snow was calling by the time we were mixing the pudding, so I finished that.  I never say no when she wants to go outside, well, almost never.

Grandma is happy.  She loves my fruitcake.  It’s better than most, it’s actually has cake in it.  I find a lot of ‘fruitcake’ is mostly fruit.  It’s my Great Grandma’s recipe and it wouldn’t be Christmas without it.

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Christmas Countdown

With all the business yesterday I forgot to share the links for this week’s Christmas Countdown.  We are in the bathroom and Ella’s room this week.  I think the bathroom is the hardest to keep clean.  But then Colin comes home dirtier than most husbands.  It’s really bad when he gets gear oil in the white sink.

I’ll share this post from Facebook yesterday, just as some encouragement to get planning:

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Christmas Present Number 1 -Done!

“Ignore the man behind the curtain” -or in this case the man holding the purse  🙂  I finally got the straps finished for the purse.  I’m quite happy with the way it has turned out.  I may even make one for myself!

First item on my Christmas to-do list is done!!

If you want to see the changes I made to the pattern, check out my Ravelry page.

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Christmas Round Up

Christmas is over but here are a few of our favourite things:

Cross country skis from G&G Fletcher

 

 

 

 

 

Big girl camera from G Rees and bunny ears provided by Uncle Stefan.

 

 

 

“best Christmas ever!!” -provided by Momma and Daddy.  I finally tracked down a Littlest Pet Shop Animal Rescue Centre -or amnimal hosipal  🙂

 

 

Momma got a nice big new bundt pan, it’s by Nordicware which is the best pan company if you ask me.  Can’t wait to get back to baking.

And to go along with my new pan, my sister picked up a whole whack of Pam for baking.  It has flour in the spray and is perfect for fancy shaped bundt pans.  It’s also impossible to buy in Ontario, so Belinda bought a bunch when they were in the States Christmas shopping.  Along with the Pam I also got a whole case of my guilty pleasure -Cherry Coke.  Yummm!  It’s also something I can’t get here in Ontario.

Of all Daddy’s presents, I think the ‘funny’ present was his favourite.  I got him this ‘Elmer Fudd’ hat from Princess Auto, it was kind of a joke, but mostly a ‘it’ll keep him warm regardless of how it looks’ type gift.  But he loves it and I think it looks pretty good on him.  Colin says it will be great this winter/spring when he starts cleaning seed again.

Finally I want to share a picture of our Christmas tree.  We haven’t had the heart to take it down yet and here’s why:

Our tree is growing.  We have new branches about 2 inches long.  I’ve had trees start to bud before but nothing like this.  It’s amazing.

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